1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of microprocessors, and more specifically, to error correction.
2. Description of Related Art
As microprocessor architecture becomes more and more complex to support high performance applications, efficient error detection and correction of data become a challenge. High performance microprocessor, storage, or communication systems usually are susceptible to a number of different types of errors including device failures, wire failures, hard and soft errors on memory cells, etc.
Existing techniques to address the problems of error detection and correction of memory or communication data have a number of disadvantages. Typically, these techniques use specialized hardware circuits or components designed according to a code polynomial. These techniques are costly, requiring complicated hardware structures. They are also not flexible and may not accommodate a variety of different types of errors.